Authors: Neil Gillman
ISBN-13: 9781580231992, ISBN-10: 1580231993
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing
Date Published: February 2004
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Neil Gillman explains how Jews have encountered God throughout Jewish history--and today--by exploring the many images of God in Jewish tradition, how they originated, and what they can mean for us. Accompanying award-winning author Gillman on a journey through the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic literature and the Jewish prayer book, we explore the Jewish tradition's passionate, but also conflicting ways of relating to God as:
This audacious exploration of the Jewish concept of God squarely faces many contradictions and conundrums. Gillman, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Jewish Theological Seminary, won the National Jewish Book Award for Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew. He begins by asking how humans can describe God if He is ultimately unknowable. Our common conception of God in human terms is metaphorical thinking, according to Gillman; when it comes to actual knowledge, "we are all agnostics. We know nothing." Moreover, "there is no way of proving objectively and conclusively that God exists." Gillman's ensuing discussion of monotheism leads to the paradox that God is simultaneously powerful and vulnerable--caring and loving, but also distant and cruel. Gillman cautions that since we cannot know God's essence, these attributes represent our own feelings. He explores human suffering through creative analyses of the Book of Job, the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva and the Holocaust, leading to the admittedly unsatisfactory conclusion that acts of God are "beyond human understanding." Finally, Gillman takes up revelation and redemption, considering the issue of the Jews as the "chosen people" and juxtaposing liberal with traditionalist views. His examination of texts brings him to accept inconsistencies and to highlight discrepancies between popular images of God and God's portrayal in classical Jewish sources. Gillman has made a significant contribution here. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
About The Way Into... | i | |
Timeline | vi | |
Acknowledgments | xv | |
A Note on the Text | xix | |
Introduction | 1 | |
Can people know anything about God? | ||
Can people say anything about God? | ||
Worshipful silence or metaphorical language? | ||
The sin of idolatry: worshiping the image instead of God | ||
We discover God and create the metaphors | ||
Can we be sure that it is God that we discover? | ||
1. | God Is Echad | 17 |
The Shema: What does it mean? | ||
One and not two, or unique? | ||
Maimonides on God's integrity | ||
Can love be commanded? | ||
Israel loves God, and God loves Israel | ||
Living in a world under one God | ||
God is not yet Echad | ||
God is lonely | ||
2. | God Is Power | 33 |
God's power is unchallenged | ||
God even creates evil and reverses the course of nature | ||
There are restraints on God's power: human freedom and the possibilities of repentance | ||
God's power in nature and God's power in history | ||
God's eventual defeat of death | ||
3. | God Is Person | 51 |
Two questions: "Where are you?" and "Where is your brother?" | ||
God searches for us as we search for God | ||
God's vulnerability | ||
The hidden face of God | ||
God as spouse, parent, and lover | ||
The wrath of God | ||
Anger versus abandonment | ||
God weeps | ||
God as person or God as process | ||
God can be moved | ||
4. | God Is Nice (Sometimes) | 71 |
Tensions in the Jewish image of God | ||
How Psalms shaped the Jewish consciousness | ||
God as nurturing, as refuge, and as rock | ||
God heals what ails us | ||
The issue of feminist God-language | ||
God is a teacher | ||
5. | God Is Not Nice (Sometimes) | 89 |
The "down" images of God | ||
From feelings to metaphors | ||
The challenge of the Book of Job | ||
Is God ethical? | ||
The death of Rabbi Akiva | ||
The problem of human suffering | ||
Holocaust theology | ||
The legitimacy of unbelief | ||
The death of God | ||
A liturgical challenge to God | ||
6. | God Can Change | 109 |
Can God really change? | ||
What changes? | ||
How God deals with human sinfulness: the evolution of a doctrine | ||
Sin is punished immediately, but the punishment must be just and it may be deferred | ||
Repentance enters the picture | ||
The message of the Book of Jonah | ||
The Thirteen Attributes of God in the Bible and in the liturgy | ||
Unetaneh Tokef: the development of a metaphor | ||
7. | God Creates | 127 |
The triad: creation, revelation, redemption | ||
We are partners with God in all three | ||
Four understandings of creation: as order out of anarchy, as anthropocentric, as the result of a primordial combat, as renewed daily and perpetually | ||
From the Bible to the liturgy | ||
Why four accounts? | ||
God is not the conclusion but the point of departure | ||
8. | God Reveals | 145 |
The principle of revelation and the fact of revelation | ||
Does God choose Israel? | ||
The content of revelation: the traditional position and three liberal interpretations | ||
The image of God in each of these | ||
We are partners with God in revelation | ||
God in Exodus and God in the Joseph narrative | ||
Heteronomy versus autonomy | ||
9. | God Redeems | 165 |
To redeem is to save | ||
From history to eschatology | ||
The eschatological impulse | ||
Three dimensions of Jewish eschatology: the universal, the national, and the individual | ||
God's triumph over death | ||
The world as not yet redeemed | ||
We are partners with God in redemption | ||
Repairing the world | ||
God as the power that makes for salvation | ||
Epilogue | 185 | |
Notes | 187 | |
Glossary | 191 | |
Suggestions for Further Reading | 199 | |
Index | 201 | |
About Jewish Lights Publishing | 206 |